Lines and Webs

by Airstream

Of Time and Treachery

The next months in Ponyville flew by for Twilight Sparkle. Her life, which had until recently seemed to be put on hold, was filled with activity. The library was always a different place in the summer, as the students no longer came by in the afternoons, instead flowing through in a near continuous trickle, from opening to closing. The Crusaders' project, unfortunately, was bringing forward very little information. They had been forced to submit what little they had found, which was only what others had come to. Cutie Marks happened without rhyme or reason, in everypony's formative years. Ponies were the only ones who had these marks, sometimes they were hereditary, and other times they weren't. They seemed to simply be another fact of pony biology, like asking why a heart beat or why the brain was vital to regulating the body. Incorrigible as ever, they had apparently decided to continue their research after graduation, hoping to make some progress before they parted ways in October.

Twilight and Morning Star's relationship continued to mature, with the couple spending time in Canterlot and Ponyville. Morning Star continued to work towards his position in the Archives, and was confident that with the addition of the rubbings to the Archives, he'd make it within the year. He had surprised her by somehow managing to acquire two tickets to the Winter Gala, which was a few short weeks before Hearth's Warming Eve. The physical aspect of their relationship never really took off again, though it wasn't for lack of trying. Interruptions plagued the two, as they were a very public couple, and well known around Canterlot and Ponyville. So, they remained chaste as the seasons grew and waned, and summer turned once more into fall.

As the leaves browned, the web on Twilight's wall grew, strings meeting and crossing and splitting anew, going to Manehatten, or Canterlot, or far-off lands. Twilight's library finally ran out of knowledge, though Golden Radiance’s work became invaluable. Soon, Twilight knew it backward and forward. The lack of knowledge in Ponyville's rather small library worked against Twilight as she called on fellow scholars in distant cities, begging and borrowing to follow her trail. She emphasized the need for secrecy, and managed to extract agreements from most in exchange for her notes on Spike, who didn't really mind. His memory proved valuable as well, enabling him to point out inconsistencies and make deductions Twilight would have missed. They worked like criminals, in the dead of night, stealing an hour or two every evening to expand the web.

Twilight wrote to her parents, asking about her family lineage, and they agreed to find out what they could.
To say that the Aria line was difficult to track would have been an understatement. After Golden Radiance had written about them, they seemed to disappear, reappearing fifty years later in the then-new settlement of Manehatten. They had remained there under their family name for seventy years or so before vanishing again, popping up in Trottingham sixty years later, under the name of Cambiare. After a scant twenty years, they left the city again, traveling north towards Fillydelphia, stopping in a few towns along the way. Each time, their name changed, but the line remained the same. Centuries passed as they went from Capo to Cantata to Cappella. Finally, they disappeared one final time, in the farthest northern reaches of Equestria, a powerful magic family gone missing in the last fifty years.

Twilight's line fared little better. Her parents sent her family trees and genealogies, but as they went further back, they information got less and less accurate. It petered out approximately one hundred and fifty years into the past, under the family name of Glimmer. As far as she could tell, her family had always been in Canterlot. All of her relatives were, and their lines went back just as far without a trace of moving. Twilight kept the note fastened to her wall, right above her rapidly growing notes on Canterlot. She was closing in, but there were still pieces of the puzzle missing. The days grew short once more, as Twilight Sparkle felt the trail growing cold. She began taking walks by herself in the hopes of finding a solution to her problem. Sadly, she felt no closer to a solution than she had when she first began, and she had wasted too much time to abandon her quest now.

So it was that Twilight Sparkle had all but given up by the time September had arrived. The search for the Aria line was now dependent on a single letter, sent to a professor near Fillydelphia, who was above all an expert on his local genealogies. With no other alternative, she waited on his letter. And as for her family, she was tracking down a lead in the small village of Hoofington, a few day's journey away. Supposedly, a monument there was dedicated to the Glimmer family, for some heroic deed long past.

Twilight felt trapped, unable to move forward or backward. This was consuming her life, something that was on the surface trivial and unimportant. What did her family line have to do with Canterlot? What did a dead House have to do with any of it? And why was she the one chosen to make this discovery?

________________________________________

Twilight kicked off her boots by the door, cleaning the mud from the floors and garments with a simple spell. It was a rainy, putrid Friday, and nopony had been stopping by the library. She checked the mail, noting that there was nothing in the box. Odds were that it was late, with the weather being the way it was. Moving to the fireplace, she began to heat up tea, hoping to ward off the chill from the rain. While she waited for the kettle to boil, she moved downstairs into the basement. Spike was down there already, tacking up a few more lines. The dragon looked up as she entered.

"You know, it looks like you may be right about Celestia. There is no group that has been around the Princess long enough to have manipulated ponies like this, and not to mention most of our suspects have at one point or another apparently been manipulated themselves." he said quietly, as if the Princess was standing overhead.

Twilight sighed. "I'm hoping that it isn't the case, Spike. If we can't trust her, then...we don't have a chance of succeeding. I don't even know what's going on anymore. Whatever this is, it's complex on a level we can't even begin to imagine, the product of a lifetime's planning. It's not just us either, look." She indicated a grouping of weather-related Cutie Marks. "It even looks like these lines come together in Las Pegasus. Doesn't Rainbow Dash have a lot of family there?"

Spike nodded. "Or Applejack's family, they've been picking apples for two hundred years, all within sight of Canterlot until recently. Or Rarity, her family has been based in the Trottingham area for a while, and her Cutie Mark lines up with this House here. Even Fluttershy has noble family with animal related Cutie Marks. This is huge!" He sighed. "Any response from the professor?"

Twilight shook her head. "Nothing. Mail takes a while getting to and from the north, there aren't as many railroads out there, and the airships are for cargo transport only, really. We'll be waiting for a while more, I'm afraid."

Spike fastened another length of string to the wall, connecting two distant relatives of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. "Is Morning Star coming down this weekend?"

The unicorn perked up. "Yes, actually. He'll be by on the late afternoon train. It'll be good to see him, at least. Says he has a surprise, and that he'll only tell when he gets into town."

Spike smiled. "He's a good guy, Twilight. You really lucked out. Do you think that-"

There was a clatter from the mailbox upstairs. Twilight beamed, heading up the steps. "Maybe the professor replied!" she said. Walking up the stairs, she peeked out the window, waving at the poncho wearing mailmare, who gave her a walleyed grin and flapped into the storm. Withdrawing a few pieces of mail from the box, she began to flick through them. A few letters from the Royal Academy, one invitation for dinner in some noble's house several months from now, and so on. She flicked through the letters, of which there were many. Stopping most of the way through the pile, she pulled out a note from Hoofington. She scanned the remaining letters, and tossed them to one side. Opening the envelope, she headed back downstairs, pulling out a single sheet of paper. She descended the staircase into the sub-basement, and unfolded it, reading aloud to Spike, who listened with interest.

"My dearest Twilight. Greetings from Hoofington, and I hope you are doing well. In responding to your letter of 3 September, I can confirm that there once was a statue in the middle of town commemorating one of your ancestors, a most worthy lawpony by the name of Watchful Glimmer. The statue has since been removed, but the plinth still remains, grown over and almost illegible. However, the main body of the words still stands, with only the details worn away. It reads 'Here we commemorate the valor of Watchful Glimmer, wife to the Noble pony Moonlight Radiance, who...' Unfortunately, the rest has been worn away, but the words that remain do indeed conclude that not only did your family live here, they were married to noble stock! I hope this helps you in your studies, and I am eager to hear more of what you find. Ever yours, Inky Quill, Head Librarian of Hoofington."

Twilight read it again. "Married to Moonlight Radiance." Again. "Moonlight Radiance." "Radiance.". Her mouth worked in shock. The implications were staggering. Not only was House Radiant alive, it was concentrated in her and her brother. Suddenly her family's aptitude for magic was cast in a whole new light. She tried to speak, her voice small. "Spike..." Her voice failed, and she tried again. "Spike, my family...I was bred to be a spellcaster. Everypony in my family was bred..."

Spike's eyes widened. He looked to the wall, at the long line of warriors and mages, the history of marriage and death, the pruning of undesirable branches and the encouragement of others. He spoke. "We're going to sit down and talk about this. I'm going out to get supplies for dinner. Go for a walk, calm yourself down. Meet me back here, and we will both calm down together and discuss what this means."

The unicorn mare nodded, following Spike out of the door. Together, they walked up the stairs. Twilight pulled on her boots, slinging a hooded cloak over her back and fastening it tightly. The two of them looked at each other. Finally, without another word, Twilight opened the door, and the duo walked out into the rapidly diminishing rains.

________________________________________

Twilight was never sure of how she ended up where she did, but she managed to make it through town and out into the country before she realized where she was. Lying in front of her, a collapsed heap of dry bones, was the hydra carcass. She had avoided coming here after the fact for two reasons. One was the bad memories associated with this place. She had no desire to relive what she now knew was her first attempt at Breaking magic. The second was the constant stream of tourists who wandered around in morbid fascination, and hoping to catch a glimpse of the unicorn who had done this heroic deed. Luckily for her, the rain had driven them off. Standing there by the remnants of the once-great beast, she allowed herself to weep. She had been kidding herself, of course. She had somehow managed to convince herself, deep down, that she was not made for a purpose, that her family was different where everypony else's was not. But now she knew her purpose, what she was born- no, what she was bred to do, like a damned dog.

She sat there silently, weeping for a short while before pulling herself together. As she looked up at the carcass, she heard nothing save the rain and the gentle sound of a train whistle in the distance. She began to walk around it, noting everything about it, from its skeletal structure to the rate of decomposition. She began to reconstruct herself around hard scientific data, refusing to emotionally compromise herself just yet. She noted the length of its fangs, the cavity where its acid sac had once been stored, and its massive ribcage. She returned to the talons, which were large, and chipped with use. One of the feet had actually collapsed on itself into a smaller pile of bones. She approached it, noting the individual pieces. She poked through the corpse, ignoring the signs warning ponies to avoid it. There was the tibia, tarsometatarsus, the four individual digits, the...Twilight broke off her analysis. Something inside the foot was sparkling. Levitating bones out of the way, she pulled forth an object she had long thought lost. Radiant Zenith's focus crystal hung suspended by magic, its cord long since rotted away. It was flawless, glinting in the stormy light with not a crack or chip to show for its ordeal. Twilight tucked it into a pocket she had sewn into the lining of the cloak. She took another shaky breath, and began the long walk back to town.

________________________________________

Morning Star hopped off of the train, a small bag containing a bottle of good wine slung over his back. Nodding in greeting to the conductor, he began the short walk to Twilight's treehouse. He had said that he would be along later, but he had decided to try for an earlier train as an extra surprise. Humming something vaguely martial under his breath, he rounded the corner, and tapped on the door. Not getting any response, he waited. A minute went by, and he tapped again. No answer was forthcoming, so the colt let himself in.

"Twilight?" he called, searching the library. Nopony was inside, and he lay his bag down on the counter. He checked upstairs. Nothing. He came back down, noticing the basement door open. Curious, he pushed a little, the aged wood creaking a little. Nothing stirred downstairs. He trotted down the steps, past Spike's bedroom, the door open to reveal a large and vacant bed. He looked out over the basement floor, which was empty. His brow furrowed as he noticed a trapdoor open, one he hadn't seen when he had previously visited. He approached it cautiously. Strange, he hadn't been briefed on this before...

As he descended, he lit his hornlight. What he saw before him caused him to gasp. There, lain out on the wall for him to see, was the tangled mass of papers and string Twilight had been composing over the months. He took in everything, from the competing lineages to the invariable implication of Canterlot. His eyes narrowed. She knew.

________________________________________

Spike returned home, a small bag of supplies including fresh pasta and pastries in one claw. He could see another bag lying on the counter, containing a vintage red wine. Thinking Twilight had already come back from her walk, he closed the door behind him, laying his bags down and proceeding to the basement door. Padding down to the floor level, he saw the silhouette of a unicorn climbing out of the trapdoor. "Twilight? Is that you?"

"No, Spike. It isn't." came a familiar voice, and before Spike could react, a powerful spell hit him right in between the eyes. Unconscious, he slumped to the floor. An aura of reddish magic surrounded the dragon, carrying him into his room and sealing the door shut with magical bonds. Morning Star walked calmly up the stairs. Twilight was out, which gave him time to prepare, to find out what she knew and then wipe her. If he did it right, he wouldn't even have to call in Celestia. Shutting the basement door gently behind him, he hid Spike's groceries in the icebox, and settled down to wait for the mare who was, unaware, walking straight into a trap,

Comments

[Guardian_Gryphon]

Goodbyyyyyeeeeeee Morning Star
You ticked off Spike. You want to hurt Twilight.
Ye have sown the wind.

[Candor Champion]

Damn it! now I have to wait...Horsefeathers...

[khatre]

Morning Star .. You just hurt Spike ...
Words can not describe the depth of your error.
Twilight will not be .. gentle with you

[Divine Path]

Oh dear...oh dear.....OH...dear...
Excellent work.

[Stiggerzz]

morning star.....
you do realise who you just attacked......don't you?

only twilights single best friend who has been with her since she was a little filly and has been like a brother AND a son to her
as well as her #1 assistant.

twilight will not show mercy mein com- no....you are not my comrade
*ahem*
twilight will not show mercy mein nemesis

[katarjin]

i always thought the library would look good in red....good thing Star has plenty of red stuff in him

[CV12Hornet]

Morning Star - ya dun goofed.

[Swift]

She knew.

Instant thought = http://www.dramabutton.com/

[firestripe]

And thus, shit finally gets serious.

[Beware The Carpenter]

To be honest trying to breed stronger unicorns isn't something I'd detest in and of itself it's just the way Celestia is doing it which seems more complicated then would be necessary; I'd reckon if you got several powerful houses of unicorns they would probably be willing to do this to themselves without Celestia's involvement.

Also by now Twilight should realize that she was set up with Morning Star, although she probably thinks he's as ignorant to it as she was.

Likeing this!

[corona320]

Ohh in the words of biggie smalls somebody got to die. If spike goes , you gotta go. Nobody got to know that I stuck your ass in the mist.

[websterhamster]

Uh oh, Morning Star just attacked a dragon who vowed using some sort of uber-powerful mystic magic to protect Twilight... He's doomed

[madSQUIRELL]

Finally. After 25&counting chapters fecal masses hit portable ventilation provider.

Goodnight, sweet prince. will and you. And maybe also a little bit you. And I won't even start on what will do to you.
SURPRISE, MOTHERBUCKER!

[Scarheart]

ITS A TARP!

[PostPony]

4353526 you and your precognitive mind reading skills!!

[TheLolzKnight]

It's not Paranoia if your right! HA eat it mom and dad, saying my really Bucking heavy lead-foil hat was useless

... And that's why if I were to live in Equestria, I would live in the Everfree. Not very safe, but I would assemble a group of awsome people to survive with. Anything but having to deal with ponies and 'Tias mind control. Creep

[Cyro The Lone Shadow]

This won't end well for Morning star... things are about to get bloody.

[VinylScratches]

Oh man, I've been waiting for this for a long time

[Fox]

I would be proud to have been bred for specific traits (especially Twi's line's positive traits), and given our constant search for meaning and identity, I should think that such wouldn't be uncommon.

Also, they just left the door unlocked with the basement hatches open? When they knew there was a conspiracy about? Not unconvincing convenient at all.

[Cayar]

Whatever happened to draconic spell resistance? Is that not a thing in this world?

[EverfreeSparkle]

They seemed to simply be another fact of pony biology, like asking why a heart beat or why the brain was vital to regulating the body.

Are you saying they don't know about the biological pacemaker, or that the brain is made up of neurons that controls the body's other neurons and nerves? I understand the brain thing, but the heart?

[livinthelife]

Oh, I get it now. Celestia's a Bene Gesserit, she's trying to make a horsey Kwitsatz Haderach. Twi's gonna go all Muad'dib on their asses.

[AleaJactaEst]

Hell yea, in yo face, Tia

Bye-bye, Lucifer, we will (not) miss you

Oh, and again I read into the night, and didn't do the french homework... our teacher is gonna strangle me.

Oh, and I posted this on the wrong chapter. It was meant for the next one I think I should go to sleep.

[Teraunce]

Well then...I see the Library is getting a new red paint coat donated by Morning Star.